A Poetry Publishing Scandal

This past August, the poetry blog-o-sphere was abuzz with a publishing scandal involving poet Stacey Lynn Brown and the Cider Press Review. Stacey's manuscript was chosen by Tony Hoagland as the winner of CPR's book contest, to be published by the press, but after a series of miscommunications, the offer of publication was recinded. The whole ordeal was spelled out on Stacey's blog, with poets all across the internet writing in their support, or blogging their responses on their own blogs.

This blog kept its nose out of it, not sure from where the problems were stemming among the understandably heated debating. The current issue of Poets & Writers has arrived to provide some perspective, asking the question, "who should have final approval over a book's content and design - the author, who is the ultimate authority on the text, or the publisher, who knows how best to present that text to readers?”